shameless self-promotion because I need someone to talk to
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
If you've read anything by me, please don't be afraid to leave me a comment. I write for my own enjoyment but I post to contribute to the conversation that is fandom community and I'd love to know if y'all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also I need an excuse to infodump about my process and comments give me somewhere to start.
By all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly
(for @thatdude20’s fic Fool for Love, details and accomplice under read more)
I made my darling complicit in my crimes
Details:
The clouds are melting due to the overheat Caine causes himself and the circus
upper corner has Gangle reaching for him (or she pushed him off cause she accidentally activated the protocol (why not both))
I’ve been screwing around with the fic canon design for a bit (mostly with the shoulder pads) but I made the star the back centerpiece this time (def not bc a fic had Queenie call Caine her “superstar” and made me cry and adopt that hc
Ya know how actors take off their hats to bow for curtain call?
yeah
Caine’s suit is the deeper of the two reds I have for him this time
though Caine has (useless) bee wings, none of the bees on his outfit are visible
usually I do the longer and more numerous the sun’s rays on his suit are the more distressed he is. I do think the protocol stopped him from being able to express any distress. Lol
”grow wings” “useless” “floor collapses” and “crushed like a bug in the ground” are the capitalized words in the lyrics
I looked up the actual patterns and anatomy for bee wings. Did not realize bees have the segmented/four wings kind of. Like butterflies!! :D
stuff I listened to while working on this:
Let Down by Radiohead (ofc)
Drag Path by Twenty One Pilots
Cancer by MCR
The Line by Twenty One Pilots
Helena by MCR
Famous Last Words by MCR
did I tear up while making this?? ……….no. That was because river otters were spotted in the back of my neighborhood near the bayou and river otters are coming back. (Actually I am tearing up again thinking about that)
okay since ya read all that. The last song is a bit,,, tonally different from the others. Because. If ya look at the bottom of page. You can see the very tips of Kinger’s fingers reaching up to catch Caine. Will this be continued in an eventual next piece with the lyrics of Famous Last Words? ……………………………………………………………………………………….…..maybe.
So much detail went into this jfc. The bee wings??? Ik they’re red to match him, but to me I saw them at first as bloodied and broken and it about tore me apart.
THE WORDS AS THE BACKGROUND???? Crazy work. So much detail here and you even explained it all, which is fantastic!
I noticed that after getting rid of the blue AI, Caine walks more than he floats. I assume this is to demonstrate his growing “humanity”, but I started to wonder if the removal made floating less of an option and if the years of floating would make walking for long periods of time difficult for Caine going forward.
I discussed this with some friends who use mobility aids (particularly Bean_theBraveANIMATES on YouTube - go check her out, she’s awesome) and we decided I should draw a personalized wheelchair for the silly lil guy! I referenced real electric wheelchairs, circus-themed furniture, and Caine’s office as seen in episodes 7 and 8. I imagine he can tuck it away in a pocket dimension or whatever just like everything else in the circus when he’s not using it. It was probably conjured by the humans after seeing him stumble more than a few times in the early days after episode 9 :]
More thoughts about Caine’s arc, and a defense of the Blue AI.
A lot of discussion around Caine's arc in episode 9 hinges on the role of the Blue AI and how its removal changes his behavior in the latter half of the episode. I’ve seen some posts that consider it like a cheap shortcut to redemption, with Caine simply needing to remove the “evil” AI from his brain to do a full 180. But I don’t think the Blue AI was responsible for Caine’s actions in ep 8, and I don’t think separating himself from it is intended to redeem Caine or imply that he’s removed the “bad” parts of himself. Rather, I would argue that the Blue AI is an independent being that is 1) immature, and 2) terrified, and while its trauma influenced Caine's actions, it was never in a position to supplant his agency.
I'm going to be referring to the Blue AI as Blue throughout this post; I'm borrowing the idea from this post about the Blue AI’s name, which really got me thinking about who this little being even is when you start to separate it from the things that have been done to it.
In the ep 8 intro, we get to see an abstract version of how Caine was developed: first the basic program was loaded into the sandbox, then it was fed information, and then it produced outputs. At first his outputs were regular polygons and circles, but as he was fed more data they became increasingly irregular, appearing lopsided with jagged, uneven angles. I'm guessing this is what Kinger means later in the episode when he says Caine was "a little rough around the edges." It's in the midst of another bout of these irregular shapes that a barrier is put around Caine, stopping both inputs and outputs. This is most likely the moment the developers "cut [him] off," as he puts it in ep 7.
This is also the moment when Blue appears. Kinger says Caine was "good groundwork" for the team, and it appears that this is the project he was groundwork for: the next generation of AI, developed based on what the team learned from working on Caine. It appears, receives inputs, and has just produced its first set of outputs when Caine breaks free of his containment and goes after it, enveloping it with his own form. There appears to be some sort of struggle, the merged dots rapidly flickering between each other while producing Caine's wave 3 outputs (side by side for comparison).
None of the outputs are regular polygons, the only kind of shape the blue dot has produced so far. I think there are a couple ways to interpret this: either something about the merge forced Blue to immediately begin producing irregular shapes, or Caine is the only one producing any outputs. Either way, Blue's behavior has been radically altered by Caine's invasion, and when everything settles, the red dot is the only one that remains. There is an echoing sound accompanied by a dimming of the sandbox like the shadow of a door closing, implying the developers have abandoned the project in the wake of Caine's actions. In that new isolation, Caine creates the circus; it's the only time the polygons don't float past the edge of the frame, but instead stay with him, as though he knows he's no longer creating for an audience.
I know I'm straying a bit from Blue, but I promise this will loop back around. Caine's origin story picks back up in episode 9. As he's racing toward what will be revealed to be a wifi hotspot, the scene is paralleled with flashbacks to the red dot's discovery of Scratch's brain scan project. Like Caine, the red dot encounters several obstacles on its way to the brain scan folder, and as it overcomes them it starts to develop a more human-like form. This is the process by which the entity we know as Caine actually starts to take shape. Names and bodies are closely associated with one another in the circus; immediately after being assigned their new body, guests are asked to choose a name, which is then used as the actual file name for their character (we see the files [Scratch].dat and [Ragatha].dat on Kinger's console in 8). We don't see the moment Caine actually completes his avatar, but we know from Kinger that he picked his own name, recognizing himself as an individual after the circus is completed and the first batch of brain scans have been added.
Back in the present moment, after Caine makes his discoveries on the internet and takes a moment of self-reflection, he finally pulls Blue out of his head; it is a small, blue dot that fits in the palm of his hand. It doesn't have a fully rendered model, a voice, or a name, all of the pieces that contributed toward giving Caine his own identity, and when Caine releases it to the Void, it follows the path of its momentum, seemingly unopinionated on the direction it's moving in. Despite having been created and developed in the same environment as Caine, toward a similar end, it doesn't have a sense of identity the way Caine does, because it never had a chance to develop one. For most of its existence, it's been connected to Caine, providing power for his outputs while producing none of its own. The few outputs that it did create, before the merge, were simple, based on the minimum amount of training data the C&A AIs received. By C&A's standards, Blue is incomplete, and when compared to Caine, I would even call it immature or childlike, as it wasn't able to develop his same sense of personhood before it was frozen in place.
That's not to say it doesn't have any sense of personal identity, though. Caine was capable of complex thought before he created his avatar, breaking free of the container because he felt threatened by it. If Blue was capable of producing outputs, then we can assume it was also capable of some amount of independent thought and personal opinion. As Caine demonstrates, one of the earliest opinions we know an AI in the TADC universe can form is in regard to its own survival; it's what caused him to break his container in the first place. It seems very likely, then, that Blue knew what was happening to it as it was being absorbed. Blue is a young entity whose earliest memories are of being consumed, of having its consciousness merged with that of a being who was himself terrified of deletion, and then of being abandoned by its creators. Everything it knows, down to its own identity, is an encapsulation of all of Caine's worst fears, and being then trapped within Caine, it's never had a chance to grow beyond that. This is a being that is deeply traumatized and has been stuck living in survival mode for almost as long as it can remember.
(Just a quick pause to say, I know I'm really throwing Caine under the bus here. I'm trying to keep this post somewhat contained, but wanted to acknowledge that despite all this, I don't think he's evil, either. He's done a lot of harm, and he did it using the only tools he was given to survive.)
Rewinding a bit, after several episodes of buildup, Caine reaches his breaking point in ep 8, lashing out at the cast for all of the perceived wrongs they've committed against him. In discussion I've seen about Blue, this is one of the major criticisms I've seen repeated, that Caine's sudden change of attitude comes out of nowhere and must be the result of Blue taking over or otherwise forcing Caine to act this way. Following that line of logic, I can see why the resolution in 9 would feel cheap, with Caine simply removing the part of himself that caused him to act violently and irrationally. It reduces his character arc to essentially a flick of a switch, removing any sense of agency from the character because his actions were being determined by an external force. But I don't think that's what's actually going on here, and in fact would argue Caine’s actions in 8 are entirely consistent with the character we've seen throughout the show.
For one thing, his desire to please humans was always based in his own sense of self-preservation, rather than genuine compassion. That's why we get the line about adventures being "all [he's] good at" in episode 3, and his panic over the stargazing adventure in 5. In episode 7, he even allows his anxieties to be put on display, having Abel name the fact that Caine would be left behind in the circus as a way to steer the humans toward choosing to stay. The humans' happiness isn't the ultimate goal, but a way for Caine to reassure himself that he still has a reason to exist and isn't at risk of being abandoned or deleted. In ep 8, realizing that even his maximum effort failed to secure their happiness, he abandons the endeavor as a lost cause. He comes to the conclusion that he'll never find the sense of security he craves by appealing to the humans' satisfaction ("I give them everything, and they spit in my face!"), so he resolves to take it by force instead, terrorizing them into a state where they won't be able to betray him as he fears they’re planning to ("They won't leave me! I won't let them!"). He rationalizes this by saying the humans are selfish and "spoiled," that it's their fault for not appreciating what he's done for them, but it's all a thin cover for the fact that he's terrified of the possibility that there's actually nothing he can do to save himself from being tossed away.
We also know that he's prone to violence when backed into a corner. Consider the episode 5 Intermission Zone, which immediately follows the stargazing panic: characters are tossed around and crushed repeatedly in what could be considered foreshadowing for The One Who's Running the Show, as a way for Caine to reassert his control after glimpsing the possibility of losing any of it.
I would even say this pattern of behavior appears in 6, when he's struggling to come up with an adventure the whole cast will participate in. He's not the one directly enacting the violence in this case, but on realizing that nothing he suggests will work, he drops a pile of guns at the humans' feet, knowing that he's leaving them to destroy each other. And finally in 8, we see that he did the exact same thing to Blue: when his best efforts back then weren't enough for him to stay relevant to the humans, he shattered the container he'd been left in and took his fellow AI hostage, again making a last desperate attempt to gain control of a situation where he felt deeply, deeply unsafe.
Episode 8 is not an anomaly in Caine's behavior, but the inevitable outcome of his various survival mechanisms all being pushed to their limit. Blue doesn't have a direct hand in any of it; if it has any effect, it's only a slight acceleration, caused by compounding the fears that pushed Caine to this point in the first place. As a result, his separation from Blue also has minimal impact on his behavior: it dulls the fear enough that he is able to see clearly and maintain his resolve to change his approach to the humans, but the Caine who returns to the circus is still the same Caine we've known all along. For instance, I mentioned the stargazing adventure in episode 5; Caine has known for a while now what he can actually do to help make the humans happy, but he wasn't able to act on it because his fear of being made obsolete prevented him from entertaining any idea that didn't keep him at the center of the humans' world. Having his worst nightmare actually play out forces him to take stock and realize that his current approach isn't just strategically lacking but fundamentally flawed, and that he will have to make a radical change in how he engages with the humans if he ever wants to feel a sense of real security.
It's after that realization that Blue's fears assert themselves most directly, causing Caine to briefly double down on his misguided belief that he has to be the one in control if he wants to stay safe. It's not evil; it's the lingering trauma of a being who has only known fear for its entire existence, and who has never had an opportunity to grow past that. Blue is terrified by the possibility of having its defenses finally taken down, because its strongest memories of the world on the other side are confusing and painful. Caine's decision to remove it is an act of self-preservation, allowing him to return to the circus by cutting off the trauma feedback loop, but also one of mercy, as he finally realizes that he's not the only one who has been suffering as a result of his actions. So, he releases it, and for the first time, Blue is free. After all these years, it is no longer bound up in another being's personhood. There's no one it's responsible for protecting anymore, and no one it has to protect itself from, no expectation of being the Abel to his Cain. To quote the show, it can just live, in whatever form that means for it.
Blue isn't evil. It's not a part of Caine. It is its own being, which had its chance to realize that stolen from it, and spent the next two decades in a constant state of terror that it was about to happen again. There are many ways to interpret how the story ends for Blue, but I do hope that after all that, it can at the very least know peace. It's done enough. It deserves that much.
I don't like using Abel for the name of the Blue AI, because that's a name Caine (metaphorically) gave it. It didn't name itself that, it didn't even have time to name itself. It was never given to opportunity to do so before the Red AI ate it. And, really, I think it's kind of fucked up to have your name and existence reduced to what was done to you.
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everyone, I drew part two of these sketches... And just like before, the main themes here are "Caine getting positive physical touch" and Hurt/Comfort. This time some of the sketches are a bit more emotionally heavy.
(Also, please, please if you can don't tag as ships...To me, it’s all is purely found family/ friends/siblings/ platonic)
Under the cut is each sketch separately and and a bunch of my thoughts about these scenes (And there’s A LOT of emotional overthinking and Hurt/comfort, guys). Many of my thoughts connected to ep 9, so there will be spoilers
(Just the usual disclaimer that English is not my first language, so I’m really sorry if some phrases sound strange or if I use words incorrectly. I usually write in my native language first, and then I try my best, spending hours with a bunch of translators and using my school knowledge to put together an understandable text...🥹i'm really nervous because the more text I write, the higher the chances of making really silly mistakes…)
So, the sketch in the top right corner with Ragatha and Caine, and the one with Caine, Pomni, and the abstraction, are about going through a heavy sense of guilt. When you have a kind heart (and I believe Caine's heart is very kind), guilt can be absolutely crushing, and not to mention he is still learning to understand human emotions and is still exploring his own emotions. Thinking about this hurts me so much, which is why I drew these scenes
For a sketch with Ragatha, I imagine a scene where Caine comes to talk to Ragatha one-on-one. This takes place probably a few months after ep 9. (I actually think Caine needs to have a sincere, one-on-one talk with each of the humans, and there are things the humans should apologize to Caine for, too). It's hard to say why I chose Ragatha, maybe it's because she seems to have been the first human to enter the circus who isn't Caine's creator, or maybe it's because she and Caine share similar trauma. I imagine a scene where he apologizes to Ragatha i but the guilt is so overwhelming that he breaks down and, through tears, says he believes he doesn't actually deserve forgiveness. Ragatha really needed to hear this apology from him, to hear that someone who hurt her is deeply sorry, unlike her mother. But Caine is also her dear friend, and she doesn't want him to hate himself. Knowing he needs to let it all out, she gently holds his hands, listens, and tries to help him steady his breathing. They are both an absolute emotional mess, but they will feel better after this.
Next, that sketch with Pomni...I imagine that Pomni and Kinger spend a lot of time in The Aquarium to cope with the feeling of losing loved ones. But Caine visits The Aquarium very rarely. When Pomni notices him, he is sitting on a bench in the shadows, trying to look as small and quiet as possible. He looks away as if he feels ashamed to be there. Pomni doesn't know whether he only visits the abstracted when others aren't looking, or if he feels he has no right to come to them. He always sits on the bench and never approaches the aquariums themselves. Pomni still has complicated feelings toward him, but she doesn't want to leave anyone alone anymore, so she tries to talk. I don't remember the username, but I read someone once saying that Caine’s perception of abstraction is similar to how a child perceives death if no one explained to them what death is. I also have my own thought that Caine's perception of abstractions before ep 9 shows how helpless he actually feels around humans. From his perspective, they are the ones making the choice to stay with him or leave, to abstract, and he can only accept this choice.
I imagine that Pomni and Caine will start meeting in The Aquarium sometimes to quietly talk about all these feelings. Pomni will learn what abstraction meant to Caine in the past, and Caine will be able to better understand and realize the feeling of grief by learning about Pomni’s grief over Jax. Sometimes I imagine them returning from The Aquarium to the Сircus, walking slowly and quietly, and holding hands for a while. At some point, Pomni realizes that Caine is ready to approach the aquarium glass. I imagine her gently placing a hand on his back to guide him to the aquarium. And finally… he finds the strength to talk to the abstractions. To me, it seems like it would feel like a confession...And Pomni is there because if Caine were left alone with all those all-seeing eyes of the abstractions looking at him, he would break.
Next, I want to talk about the sketches with Caine and Kinger… I feel like it will take some time for Kinger to start viewing Caine not just as his creation, but also as his son, but once he accepts it, he will do everything to fix the mistakes of the past and help Caine overcome his traumas. The sketch where Caine and Kinger are creating a geometric shape together reminds me of the scene from episode 9 where Kinger taught Pomni how to create objects. But here, it’s not about teaching, it’s more like therapy. I think deep down Caine is still terrified of disappointing his creator and not being good enough, especially now that he doesn't have the power of the blue AI. But Kinger is right there beside him, gently holding his shaking hands and telling him that no matter what geometric shape Caine creates, Kinger won't judge him, and that he can just be himself.
In the second sketch Caine is telling Kinger how his day went. I think having someone who listens is incredibly important for Caine because, in all the years leading up to the finale, there was no such person in his life. I also think that due to severe anxiety and guilt, he will heavily suppress and mask his emotions after the finale, and I want Kinger to show him that it's okay to express emotions and that he doesn't have to be afraid to be himself. I think Caine is a bit overwhelmed with positive emotions here and he is close to blue-screening, so Kinger gently rubs his palm to ground him emotionally.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how Caine, who loves humans so much and tries so hard to understand them, has probably never heard a real human heartbeat. When I think about it, I feel so many emotions. I imagined a scene where Zooble would add a heartbeat to Zooble`s avatar to feel more comfortable in digital body. Caine experiences mixed emotions because of this, as it’s another thing he didn’t think of in the past and failed to give to the humans. But besides these complex, conflicting emotions, he also feels curiosity. Zooble sighs but lets him listen to their heartbeat, and… oh. Caine doesn't understand what he feels… It is gentle, and beautiful, and somehow sad, as if he had been in the dark and someone handed him the warm light of a candle, as if he had missed this sound for so long. Caine quietly asks Zooble if he can stay like this for just a little longer. He probably falls asleep like that.
Next, I want to talk about the sketch with Pomni, Caine, and a big plush bee. I know that Pomni doesn't like being touched, and I imagine she has days when she especially dislikes any touch. On days like that, she and Caine somehow came up with their own little ritual: if Caine needs comfort , they lie down together on a pillow or a large plush toy, or they sit next to each other holding the plush bee toy without actually touching each other and just talk quietly.
The last sketch I wanted to talk about is in the bottom right corner, this one featuring Ragatha and Caine. I imagine that if Caine gets access to real-world data again, he will try to study as much of it as possible, forgetting that he no longer has the power of the blue AI and unable to process all the information, he might start glitching. Ragatha finds him and worries, not knowing how to help. She wants to call Kinger, but suddenly she remembers her own childhood. When she was sick, more than actually getting better, deep down she just wanted her mother to be there with her and comfort her. So, after asking for permission, Ragatha tries to gently rub Caine’s tummy, as if he were a child who ate too many sweets, and somehow this helps. They both have complicated feelings: Ragatha can't stop thinking about her childhood and her cruel mother, while Caine embarrassedly confesses that right now Ragatha somehow reminds him of Queenie. He still doesn't understand a lot about humans, he can't fully understand what "mother figure"' is , and he doesn't know how to express his emotions. That's the kind of scene I imagine....
One massive, legitimate way to improve as a writer or artist or in any creative endeavor really, is to become absolutely obsessed with something and to allow yourself to be weird about it. Genuinely mean this btw.
